Crizotinib demonstrated a significantly higher intracranial disease control rate and prolonged progression-free survival as compared with chemotherapy in patients with treated brain metastases, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology has shown.1

Previous studies have demonstrated that crizotinib, a kinase inhibitor, is effective for the treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors are anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive. In this study, researchers sought to evaluate the intracranial efficacy of first-line crizotinib vs chemotherapy.

Researchers assessed intracranial efficacy at baseline and every 6 or 12 weeks in patients with or without known brain metastases, respectively.

Results showed that there was a nonsignificant improvement in intracranial time to progression with crizotinib in the intent-to-treat population of 363 patients (HR, 0.60; P = .069), patients with treated brain metastases (HR, 0.45; P = .063), and patients without brain metastases (HR, 0.69; P = .323).

The authors noted that although the improvement in intracranial time to progression was not statistically significant in either subgroup, sensitivity to detect treatment differences in or between the 2 subgroups was low.

Researchers found that progression-free survival was also significantly longer crizotinib as compared with chemotherapy in both patients with treated brain metastases (HR, 0.40; P < .001) and those without brain metastases (HR, 0.51; P < .001), as well as patients in the intent-to-treat population (HR, 0.45; P < .001).

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